So yeah, I got lucky this year and can squeak by with a new graphics card. It's finally time to put my GTX 295 to pasture (I'm sure about it this time fellas; I'm no longer happy with it's performance).

Been out of the loop for a bit so I'd like to know: what, really, are my options? I hear AMD has some pretty sweet deals lately (video game bundles), but I also hear the GTX 670 would probably be what I should look at (dual 1920x1080 displays).

In all reality I see this as being the last upgrade this PC will ever get. She'll probably be completely replaced two to three years from now.

Both AMD and nVidia have good GPUs to choose from the thing is your budget is really going to dictate what folks recommend. In the $150 - $200 range I would recommend looking for a Radeon 7850 as it's definitely the best bang for the buck in that price bracket. In the $200 - $300 price range I would again recommend AMD with a Radeon 7950 however if you really prefer nVidia you could go with a GeForce 660Ti. Anything above that and it's pretty much nVidia with either a GTX 670 or GTX 680.

...Anything above that and it's pretty much nVidia with either a GTX 670 or GTX 680.

Hmmm, you need to recheck and recalibrate your logic. The new driven 7970 spanks the 670 and and goes brass knuckles on the 680. Hell, even the 7950 smacks the 670 around. These new drivers and boost limits have really tilted the field.

And as far as price tag and the fact you can snag both Crysis 3 and BioShock Infinite for nada right now, it's a no brainer

The majority of games I'm playing right now are WoW - MoP (GTX 295 is struggling with this), BF3 (not doing too bad here), and a crap-load of STEAM games which vary in performance (Amnesia, CS: Global Offensive, Dues Ex, Skyrim, Just Cause 2, LA Noir, Portal 2, Torchlight 2, Walking Dead) but I also watch Blu-Ray video on my second monitor while I'm doing the gaming.

Considering I was going to buy Crysis 3 (but couldn't care less about Bioshock) it's still a net gain and I was shocked by the stomping Invidia is taking.

Thanks again all!

Edit -

On a side-note I hear somehow upgrading my GPU to one of the newer generation may improve my movie encode time? Is that true or do I need a newer chipset for this?

Surprised that WoW (even after upgrades via patches) is taxing a GTX 295, then again I haven't played it in a good long time so I suppose it's possible. Same thing happened with EVE Online for me when they went from the original engine to Trinity 2.0, that's one MMO that will definitely give your GPU a stress test. The Double D has the specs to be a pretty good card and I have heard of some pretty good overclocks achieved with it. Myself I'm partial to the TwinFrozr coolers that MSI puts on their cards as they have a very good reputation of keeping the card cool while staying pretty quiet. Either one would be a good choice. I'm curious as to how long AMD will hold this lead, could be permanent or like many things in the PC world fluctuate back to AMD. Glad to see that they are giving nVidia some competition though perhaps a bit later this year when I look to upgrade from my 560Ti I'll take a longer look at AMD.

Insofar as improving your encode times using the GPU that really depends on the program you're using and how well it is written. I believe handbrake does a pretty good job of using a GPU to encode but I'm not sure what other software puts GPU encoding to good use.

The majority of games I'm playing right now are WoW - MoP (GTX 295 is struggling with this), BF3 (not doing too bad here), and a crap-load of STEAM games which vary in performance (Amnesia, CS: Global Offensive, Dues Ex, Skyrim, Just Cause 2, LA Noir, Portal 2, Torchlight 2, Walking Dead) but I also watch Blu-Ray video on my second monitor while I'm doing the gaming.

Considering I was going to buy Crysis 3 (but couldn't care less about Bioshock) it's still a net gain and I was shocked by the stomping Invidia is taking.

Thanks again all!

Edit -

On a side-note I hear somehow upgrading my GPU to one of the newer generation may improve my movie encode time? Is that true or do I need a newer chipset for this?

NSAFreak: Hey bro. Yeah, I use HandBrake. Shocked the Hell out of me too. I know it's not any other bottleneck as I've reformatted since then and my i7 is still OC'd. Has to be the GPU...noticed the massive slowdown after MoP. Other games came slightly after. Figure it's time to put her to pasture.

Fabbbyyy: Mine is same price after rebate, but I appreciate you looking out for another man's pocket book!

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